CES 2012: Lytro Photowalk

Dpreview had a chance to have a closer look at the Lytro light field camera during an event an the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. The Lytro camera is getting close to production stage and the first cameras are to ship next month. Initially the camera will only be available on lytro.com but the team is in talks with various retailers to expand their sales channels. Retail price for the blue and grey versions which come with 8GB internal memory will be $399. The red 16GB model is $499.

The technology is based on capturing information not just about the colour and brightness of the light entering the camera, but also the direction it has arrived from. This information can then be re-interpreted as if the camera had been focused at different depths into the scene, giving an image that the viewer can re-focus and 'explore.'

According to Jason Bradley, professional photographer and one of the system's beta testers, this first incarnation of the light field camera is all about 'having fun with a new toy'. Eric Cheng, Lytro's Director of Photography adds that the camera is targeted at gadget lovers and early adopters but also at photographers who simply appreciate the possibility of taking a quick snapshot without having to worry too much about your focus points.

Eric Cheng, Lytro's Director of Photography, explains the advantages of the new system to members of the press.

The camera's shape is very different to conventional cameras, with a very minimalist approach. On the top of the camera the only two controls are the shutter button and an (almost invisible) zoom panel.

Eric says the camera's user interface is at this stage not quite final yet but pretty close. Image quality is also still being optimized before the first units become available. In use the interface is very minimal, with only a shutter button and a zoom slider on top of the camera. A couple of other functions and the image review can be controlled via the responsive touch-screen. It's definitely an interesting exercise to try to throw some image elements out of focus and then 'refocus' them in review mode. That said, the screen on the camera is a little too small and low resolution to fully appreciate the effect. On the computer screen the process becomes more fun.

The model we've been using today has an experimental 'Advanced Light Field Mode' that wasn't in the previous examples we've seen. Cheng makes clear that its behavior isn't 'final' and it may not appear in this form in the cameras that customers recieve. We hope it does, as it's an interesting addition to the camera's capabilities.

In standard mode, the camera's lens is set to the equivalent of the hyperfocal distance in conventional photography (the closest point of focus that renders objects at infinity as acceptably sharp). For instance, at wideangle, it captures a depth of field of approximately 4 inches to infinity, and the final image allows re-focusing at all points in between. The Advanced Light Field mode, (as it currently exists) prompts the camera to phyically refocus its lens closer than this, centering the depth of field in your shot around your specified focus point. When this image is refocused on the camera screen or on your computer, the focus can be shifted around that specified point, but not out to infinity. For example if you focus on a subject's eyes, you will, depending on the focal length, be able to shift the focus between their ears and nose.

Our first impressions are that the Light Field Camera is an interesting device, probably not for people committed to conventional photography, but both fun and creative (Lytro has been saying for a while that it is initially focusing on mainstream consumers). However, the Advanced Light Field mode does start to hint at the direction the company might take. As an optional mode, we think photographers will appreciate the additional creative control it offers.

The screen on the back is used for composition. You tap on it to set your focus point and exposure. In review mode you can refocus the image and zoom in, again by tapping or double tap respectively.

The camera feels solid and is nicely made with an aluminum housing and a rubber grip.

There's always a need for convinience and options, e.g. where to focus AFTER the fact. What remains to be seen is whether it's implementation will be correct for current market conditions... and that remains to be seen.

You'd imagine "pro's" using cutting edge human tech to do their stuff daily would give more leeway to moving on, but lol no - just to remind you - the Earth aint flat and like your counterparts thought back then, I hope the innovaters ignore you , progress involves baby steps and somettimes bold steps, you numpties - some ideas your predecessors have enjoyed pooing over the centuries are fact and day to day life now- hence , shat it! Let the people who do - do, and let us buy it when they make it. :p

Will DPR ever start doing reviews of advanced mobile phone cameras, or is it necessary that manufacturers first rip out the phone guts in order to get press coverage of what seem to me, in all honesty, to be far more interesting cameras?

Standard mode "captures a depth of field of approximately 4 inches to infinity, and [...] allows re-focusing at all points in between. The Advanced Light Field mode, [allows you] to shift the focus between their ears and nose."

Why is that 'advanced'? How can a persons nose and ears not be between the 4 inch to infinity range of the 'standard' mode?

If you focus to the hyperfocal distance, everything between a certain near point (4" in this case) and infinity are acceptably sharp, albeit not equally sharp.

If you focus closer than the hyperfocal distance, then the objects at infinity are no longer acceptably in focus but the depth-of-field is centered on the subject, rather than whatever the hyperfocal distance happened to be.

In this case, the range that's acceptably sharp is the range through which you can refocus the end image. Thus, if you focus on a specific object that's nearer than the hyperfocal distance, you lose the ability to refocus to infinity and the refocusable range is concentrated around the point you chose. (Possibly with highest sharpness at the point of focus you specified?)

Thanks R Butler, but I still don't get it. Are you saying that when it's naturally set at hyper focal I cannot create an image with a smaller d.o.f. than that? If I can't, what's the point of standard mode? If I can create a thin d.o.f. image anywhere between 4 inches and infinity, what's the point of advanced mode?

Are you trying to say that advanced gives a shallower d.o.f. image 'slice' than standard, but over a more limited range?

I don't see the point of this, it's like taking a pic with an infinite DOF (small sensor) and then using photoshop's blur tool to selectively choose which subject would be in focus. This product is too hyped up but it's not really practical since software and a regular iPhone camera can achieve the same effect easily. Much cheaper too.

Also, the bokeh is way too smooth, which can be good, but it looks too artificial.

Choosing focus plane / subject in focus is redundant if the DOF is infinite (ie.the foreground and background subject is in focus). Bokeh control can be done by taking the image with infinite DOF and vary the amount of blur of the subjects that you choose not to be in focus, using photo manipulation software. Doing it straight out of the camera is what this Lytro gizmo does.

It's not like that at all. It's more like taking a hundred photos at every focal point from 4" to infinity" with one click, then picking which one you want to use afterwards.

Selective blurring in Photoshop is very time consuming to do well and 99% of the time looks like crap. I have yet to see any software that can emulate a shallow DOF or change the focus point of an image effectively. This is definitely something very different than what we've seen before and could really change the way we take photos.

Then in that case this technology will make every photographer lazier taking a photograph. What is the point of taking a hundred photos and choosing one with the perfect focus? You're going to export one picture with the desired focus anyways. If you can't do selective/gradient blurring then you need to practice with your post-processing skills.

Actually, mr moonlight, I think it's fair to define bokeh as the quality of the way out-of-focus regions are rendered.

Because the Lytro camera retains all the information about the direction of the light, it /should/ be able to render those out-of-focus regions however you like. It needn't look like an in-focus region that's been blurred.

@jsis - so if you cant paint an oil painting that looks true to life - why get yourself a camera? ----- I think focussing in the light room is a good idea. I also want a camera with very large DR so that I can choose exposure in the light room. More possibilities is a good thing. ----- I still maintain that the main problem is resolution.

@Butler - yes the possibility to get whatever bokeh you want is there. Only software is needed. Now - someone have to write that software though. I get the feeling that the Lytro team dont plan to make it easy for third party manipulation tools. And I also get the feeling that they rather aim at fun and entertainment than serious tools themselves. ----- Am I right?

the fact the matter is that this hardware, even though it's first generation, is a novelty. Yes, focusing in lightroom is neat. However, the images it outputs is utter crap and the f/2 lens with 8x zoom doesn't really help with making distant subjects in-focus. Just look at Lytro's gallery in their website, if you focus on the background (at infinity) the image isn't that sharp. The device doesn't really look that compact either, and the fact that it doesn't output high resolution images? I'd imagine that the patents probably has some more useful applications in other fields like medical imaging or microscopy, but to apply it in consumer device is hardly useful.

Some are missing the point. But that is because of the marketing ploy giving little detail.They are offering something that does not give you a jpg, but an interactive image. You get to play with a 540x540 pixel refocusable image. The only way you'll get a jpeg is with a screen capture.So you'll have to post the photo data on a site (i.e. Lytro's) that has the application to display it and allow you to play with the focussing.The samples you see are exactly what you'll get, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

I wonder it you can take a shot on your computer, export it, change the focus point, export it, change it again, export it, and so on to effectively get a focus stacked image with one shutter click? That'd be pretty sweet!

Kind of like pushing and pulling the exposure of a RAW file to create an HDR photo....

I am really looking forward to the versions of these cameras that have a larger resolution for decently sized enlargements. … I can see a time when my customers, for example a line of musicians at a football stadium are shot by me at a sharp angle, then everyone in the line could log onto my site, and refocus the image so that their particular human is the human in sharp focus, while the rest of the band slides into soft focus. And then select that focus setting for printing. … I think it is going to be cool. … I want it now!

I haven't seen it mentioned much, but this technology can also be used to generate an image with essentially infinite depth of field, rather than choosing a particular focus point and using a conventional depth of field. That's how it's used in industry (and why it was developed in the first place) to create very large depth of field without super small apertures (and thus long exposures).

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